Thursday, June 02, 2005

I'll take Manhattan

Off to NYC for BookExpo America, the grand annual confab of the publishing industry. Hope to do some live blogging from there starting tomorrow (if all goes well technically, as it did not the last time I went on the road). Have any questions you want put to the publishers' reps? Post them, and I'll pose them.

As a good newspaperman you probably already have thought of this, but let me urge you to ask "them" about self-publishing (and about blogging as it may relate to the promotion/encouragement of self-publishing). How do they view it? Is it a threat? A challenge? Something they should look into? Something they should think about taking over (which is the classic response of an industry if a challenger grows too successful)? Do they see it as an indictment of themselves for not capturing and encouraging different voices? Or do they see it as just an accidental by-blow of new technology, not producing much of value? I sound like a 10th-grade civics teacher giving an assignment. Forgive me. But it could make an interesting column for you.